Yes, says John McEwan, chairman of the Association of British Travel Agents

Swine flu has served to highlight a widely held view that large-scale international travel has hastened the spread of epidemics around the world. If this is the case then surely all such journeys should be halted immediately when we reach the situation when a pandemic threatens?

This is the logic of a viewpoint that calls on us not to travel abroad.

However, this carries disastrous implications for the world economy and serves no practical purpose.

Margaret Chan, director general of the World Health Organisation, last month gave a speech in Cancun, a venue chosen as a mark of respect for the excellent and sensible precautions taken by the Mexican authorities and people when swine flu first appeared in their country.

"As we see today, with well over 100 countries reporting cases, once a fully fit pandemic virus emerges, its further international spread is unstoppable," she said.

"Recommendations to avoid travel to Mexico, or any country or area with confirmed cases, serve no purpose. They do not protect the public. They do not contain the outbreak. And they do not prevent further international spread." A stronger rebuttal to calls for a ban on international travel would be hard to find.

However, it is understandable that people may still be worried about the risk of travellers from the UK spreading the virus to previously unaffected parts of the globe.

The travel industry is taking sensible precautions to minimise this risk. If you are clearly manifesting symptoms, the advice of travel association Abta - and that of the Department of Health - is not to travel, any cancellation fees being covered by insurance.

Airlines have always screened customers who appear potentially infectious and anyone clearly suffering from swine flu would be unlikely to get on the plane. On board, modern aircraft have air filtration systems which remove the majority of viruses and bacteria.

We have heard the spread of a pandemic is largely inevitable. Staying away from countries reliant on tourism will have a real impact on the livelihoods and incomes of millions of people. Tourist services are often the main source of employment in many countries and any drop-off in visitor numbers is potentially disastrous.

After the devastating tsunami of December 2004, tourists snubbed Thailand and Sri Lanka for some time, many concerned they would add to the strain on local resources.

Because of this, the people of both countries were hit with a double whammy; losing their jobs after losing their loved ones.

At that time Abta was approached by the tourist boards of both countries asking us to emphasise that large parts were unaffected and crying out for our customers to visit.

The same applies to Mexico now, and will continue to be true for other nations in the event of further disasters, natural or man-made.

The argument is pretty clear; we should continue to travel while at the same time taking sensible precautions to minimise the risk to ourselves, our fellow travellers and the people of the countries we visit.

No, says Robert Dingwall, an adviser to the government on planning for pandemic flu

Sooner or later the influenza pandemic will reach every corner of the globe. The World Health Organisation already reports cases from 160 countries, although relatively few have yet experienced the same scale of infection as the UK. This is partly because of our position as a global communications hub. Our networks of international business, and opportunities for long-distance tourism, brought the virus to us more rapidly, and in greater volume, than to anywhere else in Europe.

Fortunately, we were exceptionally well-prepared - better, even, than our European neighbours. The UK government has been planning its pandemic response for at least five years. We have good stocks of anti-virals and advance contracts for vaccines. Our government has had both the foresight and the resources to maximise the protection available to its citizens.

Other countries are less privileged. The major pharmaceutical manufacturers have made generous donations to the World Health Organisation, but there are just not enough anti-virals to treat more than about 5% of the world's population - and most of them are held by governments in developed countries. Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, has virtually no stock in public hands and a huge challenge in treating people who are already very sick with HIV/AIDS.

Luckily, the pandemic has been spreading more slowly in Africa, possibly because of its limited travel links. While high African death rates seem inevitable, there is a chance they could be capped if the spread of infection could be slowed so that vaccination could catch up.

The World Health Organisation is clear that travel bans are ineffective in keeping the virus out of a country - and are likely to have a disproportionate social and economic impact.

However, we should ask whether citizens of high-incidence countries have a personal ethical responsibility to consider the potential impact of travelling to low-incidence, but high-risk, countries. Could long-distance tourism do more harm than the economic benefit that it brings? Paradoxically, this question may arise most acutely for the short development project/holiday that many young people participate in, particularly as their age group has a high incidence of infection.

One supposed benefit of these activity vacations is closer contact with local people than in the upmarket tourist ghettos. The result, though, may be greater risk of passing on infection. Modern air travel means you can be infected at home, travel in an infectious condition and deliver the virus to a remote destination with a vulnerable population before your own symptoms appear. You will get whisked off to a Western-style hospital, but the people you went to help will not be so lucky. Do the benefits of your trip really justify exposing them to this risk?

While travel bans may not be justifiable, UK travellers cannot avoid thinking about their personal ethical responsibilities to the people of the countries that they are visiting. Staying at home this year will often be the morally right thing to do.

• Professor Robert Dingwall is director of the Institute for Science and Society at the University of Nottingham.

What do you think

Should we stay at home, avoid travel and keep swine flu to ourselves? Or is it all completely pointless as, inevitably, it will spread to every corner of the globe?